re-imagining and re-interpreting african jurisprudence under the south african constitution

284 Pages·2014·2.22 MB·English

RE-IMAGINING AND RE-INTERPRETING AFRICAN
JURISPRUDENCE UNDER THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTION

by

DIAL DAYANA NDIMA

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF LAWS

at the

University of South Africa

Promoter: Prof NL Mahao

November 2013
DECLARATION

Student No: 0401 137 6

I declare that Re-imagining and Re-interpreting African Law under the South
African Constitution is my own work and all the sources I have used or quoted
have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references.

Dial Dayana Ndima

Signature:……………………………….. Date: 30 November 2013

I declare that the thesis Re-imagining and Re-interpreting African Law under the
South African Constitution is of acceptable standard and can be submitted for
examination by external examiners.

Nqosa L Mahao
Promoter’s Signature:.......................................... Date: 12 July 2013

i
FOREWORD
Before 1994 the common law originating in the West enjoyed the status of the law of
the land in South Africa while the African law, in the manner in which it was studied,
administered and applied was considered inferior to it and was tolerated on the same
level as foreign law and only in so far as they were not repugnant to Western values
and moral standards. The advent of the new dispensation ushered in by the first
democratic election of 1994, brought radical changes to this unacceptable situation
through the recognition of African law as a distinct and original source of law in its
own right. Theoretically, this transformation elevated the status of African law to the
same level as common law. In practice, South Africa’s state institutions are
struggling to live up to the promise of the Constitution.

The challenge is how to get South Africa’s legal interpreters to shift their mindset
from the colonial culture of undermining African law to accepting the new reality that
it is now an independent source of law with its own unique value system. The courts
have lost the luxury of choosing to apply African law as a matter of discretion and are
enjoined to enforce it through a constitutional injunction as a credible component of
South African law. A series of legislative and judicial decisions that have emerged
from the highest legislative and judicial institutions testify to the difficulties attendant
upon the substitution of a divergent indigenous metaphysical orientation for the
hegemonic jurisprudence of the common law through the process of transformation.

Naturally institutional decisions would generate a vicious cycle of scholastic debate
on the best way of effecting a cultural re-orientation in South Africa. In substituting
constitutional supremacy for parliamentary sovereignty, a confusing context emerges
in which an elusive balance must be struck between legislative and adjudicative
powers in the process of mainstreaming indigenous values The prize would be the
achievement of an African renaissance in the form of the envisioned version of
African jurisprudence that reflects the most hallowed indigenous values which give
direction to a thriving justice system.

ii
SUMMARY
The substitution of the dominant Western jurisprudence for South Africa’s indigenous
normative values during colonial and apartheid times has resulted in a perverted
conception of law that presents Western jurisprudence as synonymous with law. In
the era of the constitutional recognition of African law where the application of the
democratic principle demands that the newly re-enfranchised African communities
deserve to be regulated by their own indigenous values, the resilience of this legal
culture has become problematic. To reverse this situation legal and constitutional
interpreters must rethink and reshape their contributions to the achievement of the
post-apartheid version of African law envisioned by the South African Constitution.

The application of African law in a free and liberated environment must reflect its
own social, political and legal cosmology in which its institutions operate within their
own indigenous frame of reference. A study of the anatomy of African jurisprudence
as a means of gaining insight into the indigenous worldview which was characterised
by the culture of communal living and the ethos of inclusiveness to counter the
prevailing hegemony of autonomous individualism, has become urgent. To achieve
this such pillars of African jurisprudence as the philosophy of ubuntu must be
exhumed in order for African law’s rehabilitation under the Constitution to be
undertaken on the basis of its authentic articulation uncontaminated by colonial and
apartheid distortions.

The task of developing the African law of the 21st century to the extent required by
the Constitution is a challenge of enormous proportions which demands an
appreciation of the historical and political environment in which African law lost its
primacy as the original legal system of South Africa after Roman-Dutch law was
imposed on the South Africa population. The revival of African law becomes more
urgent when one considers that when Africans lost control of their legal system they
had not abdicated sovereignty voluntarily to the newcomers. The validity of the
imposition of Western jurisprudence is vitiated by the colonial use of such imperial
acts as colonisation, conquest, and annexation as the basis on which the regime of
Roman-Dutch law was imposed on South Africa.

iii
Ever since, African law has been subordinated and denigrated through colonial and
apartheid policies which relegated it, via the repugnancy clause, to a sub-system of
Roman-Dutch law with whose standards it was forced to comply. The repugnancy
clause left African law a distorted system no longer recognisable to its own
constituency. The advent of the new dispensation introduced a constitutional
framework for re-capacitating South Africa’s post-apartheid state institutions to re-
centre African law as envisioned by the Constitution. This framework has become
the basis on which legislative and judicial efforts could rehabilitate the indigenous
value system in the application of African law.

The courts of the new South Africa have striven to find the synergy between
indigenous values and the Bill of Rights in order to forge areas of compatibility
between African culture and human rights. An analysis of this phase in the
development of African law, as evidenced by the present study, reveals successes
and failures on the part of the courts in their efforts to rehabilitate African law in line
with both its value system and the Bill of Rights. These findings lead to the
conclusion that whilst South Africa’s legislative and judicial institutions have not yet
achieved the envisioned version of African law, there is an adequate constitutional
framework through which they could still do so.

This study, therefore, recommends that the above institutions, especially the
courts, should adopt a theory of re-indigenisation that would guide them as they
proceed from the indigenous version of African law which is the basis on which to
apply the Bill of Rights. The application of such a theory would ensure that the
distorted ‘official’ version of African law which was imposed by colonial and
apartheid state institutions is progressively discredited and isolated from the body
of South African law and gives way to the version inspired by the Constitution.

iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On behalf of my family and I, I should like to thank my promoter Professor Nqosa
Mahao for his dedication and diligence in providing me with guidance from the time
he agreed to undertake this task in spite of his very demanding workload as the
Dean of the College of Law at the University of South Africa, and for continuing with
this daunting task even after taking up new challenges as the Dean of the Faculty of
Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand. I can also
not forget the important contribution made by my former promoter Professor
Adrienne van Blerk who took time from her hard-earned retirement to help me start
and develop this study literally by remote control from George in the Southern Cape.
Many thanks also go to Professors Henk Botha and Wessel le Roux for their role in
shaping the course of this study until their departure from Unisa.

I am grateful to Susan Eicker of Unisa Library Services for her invaluable assistance
in the typing and technical preparation of the thesis’s very first draft manuscript. The
final product still bears her footprint. I also acknowledge the support of friends and
colleagues at Unisa’s College of Law and at North-West University’s Faculty of Law
(Mafikeng Campus), for showing an interest in my progress. In particular I wish to
express special gratitude to my former colleague Nomthandazo Ntlama for selflessly
dedicating her time in lending me a hand whenever I needed it.

Special thanks go to all members of my family, both living and departed for affording
me the opportunity to embark on this study, especially my youngest child, Lunga,
who needed my assistance in her own studies, for her understanding. I dedicate this
thesis to all of them.

Last but not least, my sincere gratitude goes to Professor Neville Botha who edited
the thesis and Ms Thea de Villiers who acted as the technical editor for their sterling
efforts in making the work a readable document.

v
KEY WORDS/ACRONYMS:

A: APPEAL COURT
AD: APPELLATE DIVISION
AJ: ACTING JUDGE
AJA: ACTING JUDGE OF APPEAL
ALL SA: ALL SOUTH AFRICA LAW REPORTS
ALR: AFRICAN LAW REVIEW
ALRAEAS: ASSOCIATION OF LAW REFORM AGENCIES OF EASTERN AND
SOUTHERN AFRICA
BAA: BLACK ADMINISTRATION ACT
BCLR: BUTTERWORTH CONSTITUTIONAL LAW REPORTS
C: CAPE PROVINCIAL DIVISION
CC: CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
CCT: CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
CILSA: COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL OF
SOUTHERN AFRICA
CJ: CHIEF JUSTICE
C&O: CAPE AND ORANGE FREE STATE
CPD: CAPE PROVINCIAL DIVISION
DCJ: DEPUTY CHIEF JUSTICE
DP: DEPUTY PRESIDENT
ED(S): EDITORS(S)
EJCL: ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW
ET: AND
EX PARTE: THE ONLY INTERESTED PARTY
IBID: THE SAME AS IMMEDIATELY ABOVE
IDEM: THE SAME AS ABOVE BUT ON DIFFERNT PAGE
IN RE: IN THE MATTER OF
J: JUDGE
JA: JUDGE OF APPEAL
JAL: JOURNAL OF AFRICAN LAW
vi
JHC: JOHANNESBURG HIGH COURT
MEC: MEMBER OF EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
NAC: NATIVE APPEAL COURT
NHC: NATIVE HIGH COURT
NO: IN AN OFFICIAL CAPACITY
OBITER: IN PASSING
OP CIT: IN THE WORK CITED ABOVE
PAR(S): PARAGRAPH(S)
RSA: REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
SA: SOUTH AFRICAN LAW REPORTS
SACLR: SOUTH AFRICAN CRIMINAL LAW REPORTS
SAJH: SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS
SALJ: SOUTH AFRICAN LAW JOURNAL
SAPR/PL: SUID-AFRIKAANSE PUBLIEKREG/PUBLIC LAW
SCA: SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL
SERSAS: SOUTHEASTERN REGIONAL SEMINAR IN AFRICAN STUDIES
STELL LR: STELLENBOSCH LAW REVIEW
SUPRA: ALREADY CITED MENTIONED ABOVE
T: TRANSVAAL PROVINCIAL DIVISION
TSAR: TYDSKRIF VAN SUID-AFRIKAANSE REG
UCLA: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFONIA, LOS ANGELES
V: VERSUS
VOC: VEREENIGDE OOST-INDISCHE COMPAGNIE
VOL: VOLUME
ZACC: SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
ZANWHC: SOUTH AFRICA NORTH-WEST HIGH COURT
ZAGPHC: SOUTH AFRICA GAUTENG PROVINCE HIGH COURT

vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Declaration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Keywords/acronyms.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Table of Contents.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
CHAPTER 1: Background to the Study
1.1 Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The statement of the problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3 The aims and objectives of the study.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4 Literature review.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4(a) General.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4(b) The application of African law in its indigenous setting.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4(c) The application of African Law under Colonial and Apartheid legislation.. . . . . . . . 17
1.4(d) The view that the Constitution perpetuates the inferior status of African law. . . . . . 17
1.4(e) The view that African values are inconsistent with the South African Constitution...18
1.4(f) The view that there is a synergy between the African value system
and the South African Constitution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.4(g) The view that the African justice system seeks to resolve the problems
between the victims of crime and the offenders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.4(h) The view that certain traditional African law rules, principles and concepts are
central to the resolution of social disputes.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.5 Hypothesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.6 Limitations underlying the study.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.7 Research design or methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.8 Sequence of chapters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.9 Understanding the key words for purposes of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.10 Chapter conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
CHAPTER 2: The anatomy of African Jurisprudence: A basis for understanding
African socio-legal and political cosmology
2.1 Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.2 The family as the basic unit of communal living and solidarity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.3 The principle of primogeniture and the concept of family head.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.4 The concept of substitution in African law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.5 The African family and the concept of the corporate home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.6 The institution of marriage in African law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.7 Shared belonging and guardianship in African law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.8 The role of ritual in African culture.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.8(i) Meaning and characteristics of rituals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.8(ii) The purpose and importance of rituals in African culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.8(iii) Incidents/examples where rituals are required and practised.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.8(iv) The emerging challenges related to the practice of rituals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.9 Collective ownership and group solidarity in African law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.10 Traditional leadership and governance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.11 Chapter conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
viii
CHAPTER 3: The imposition of Roman-Dutch Law as the common law of
South Africa
3.1 Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.2 The imposition of Roman-Dutch law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.3 The emergence of the English common law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.4 The resilience of Roman-Dutch law under British rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.5 The survival of African law under colonial rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.6 Modification of African law through statutes: Emergence of the South African
common law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.7 Chapter conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
CHAPTER 4: The subordination of the African value system to Western
moral standards
4.1 Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.2 The degradation of indigenous thought systems by Western anthropologists.. . . 103
4.3. The reaction of indigenous scholars to theories of non-recognition. . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.4 The cleansing of African values through the repugnancy clause. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.5 How African law became a clone of the common law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.6 Chapter conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
CHAPTER 5: The role of the legislature in institutionalising the
Constitutional injunction to affirm African Law
5.1 Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.2 The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.3 Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
5.4 Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.. . . . . . . . . . . . 145
5.5 The Reform of Customary Law of Succession and Regulation of Related
Matters Act.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.6 Chapter conclusion .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
CHAPTER 6: The role of the Courts in institutionalising the Constitutional
injunction to affirm African Law
6.1 Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.2 The principle that African family property belongs to the corporate home
and that members are shareholders under the leadership of the head. . . . . . . . . 160
6.2(i) Ownership of family assets in African law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.2(ii) The African law of succession in terms of colonial and apartheid
legislation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.2(iii) African law of succession in the eyes of the Transvaal (now Gauteng)
High Court. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.2(iv) The African law of succession in the eyes of the Supreme Court of Appeal. . . . . 165
6.3 The principle that indigenous rights must be determined in terms of African law.. 174
6.3(i) The rule that pre-colonial indigenous law rights in land survive colonisation. . . . . 174
6.3(ii) The role of post-apartheid courts in the adjudication of African law. . . . . . . . . . . . 176
6.3(iii) Post-apartheid African law in the eyes of the Bhe-Shibi majority judgment. . . . . . 180
6.3(iv) Post-apartheid African law in the eyes of the Bhe-Shibi minority judgment. . . . . . 190
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